Sprint Promises 'Fresh' Windows Phone 8 Handsets at CES 2013

Phones coming this summer won't just be retreads of existing models, Sprint insists.

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LAS VEGAS—Sprint is coming late to the Windows Phone 8 party, with phones on the new OS coming this summer, months after they arrived on the three other big national carriers. Sprint's Windows Phone 8 devices won't be retreads, however, according to Sprint's director of device delivery Ryan Sullivan.

"They'll be current," he said. "We're working for current product launches, and not necessarily to launch on six-month-old hardware."

This is a concern as slow-moving hardware upgrades are one of the things that doomed Windows Phone 7. Microsoft only approved one round of hardware a year, so phones that appeared later in the cycle looked old. Sullivan referred to Sprint's upcoming launches as a "generation" of Windows Phones, though, raising hope that they won't just be another round of Nokia 822 and HTC 8X devices.

"We're trying to work with Microsoft to make sure what we deliver is very high quality," he said. "The platform integration and the services that we want to bring aren't the only things we want to make fresh."

"Microsoft has really started to drive that three-screen paradigm," Sullivan said. "I think that's why they're going to do better this time. As the carrier ecosystem begins to build, and they reach all the tier 1s, I think they'll start to build momentum," he said.

Currently, Apple, Android, and BlackBerry phones make up Sprint's entire smartphone line. But that may expand even beyond Windows Phone, as Sullivan said Sprint is open to both the new Firefox and Tizen OSes. He had nothing to say about the upcoming Ubuntu mobile OS, however.

"We're actually collaborating with a lot of those guys in terms of making sure we get out requirements in early," he said. "It's entirely possible" that Tizen and Firefox phones will appear on Sprint shelves, although "it's too early to see if any of them is actually going to emerge," he said.

New Phones on New Plans
Sprint is also looking at changing the way it approaches service plans, and its new Sprint-branded no-contract option is just the first step.

At first, Sprint doing its own no-contract phones seems a little odd; the carrier has had plenty of success with Virgin and Boost, so does it need a third brand? Sprint spokeswoman Michelle Mermelstein said that the new offering was more about making sure that people who come into Sprint stores looking for no-contract phones don't walk away empty handed.

But Sullivan hinted that Sprint is also very interested in T-Mobile's experiment with detaching phones from subsidies entirely. While "I don't believe that the industry will ever move away from a subsidy model per se," he said, "you'll see carriers trying to blend the experience" with offerings like financing and the equipment installment plan T-Mobile is using.

"I think you'll see a lot of the industry follow suit," he said. "We're always looking at that, and there are lots of things in development," he said.

When Are the New Phones Coming?
Sprint didn't bring any new hardware to CES, but we should expect to hear about plenty of new Sprint smartphones in the first quarter of 2013, Sullivan said.

"A lot of carriers and manufacturers are reserving their major smartphone launches for standalone events, and MWC (in February) has become a very popular show for making major announcements," he said.

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts of the daily PCMag Live Web show and speaks frequently in mass media on cell-phone-related issues. His commentary has appeared on ABC, the BBC, the CBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and in newspapers from San Antonio, Texas to Edmonton, Alberta.
Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer, having contributed...
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